I Watch My Skin Fall
by emojis
Summary: She knew it wasn't right, knew it was poisonous and self-destructive, and Tate had told her time and time again that she was simply torturing herself, but Violet couldn't help it; watching her body rot in the crawl space of the basement was soothing...
1. Chapter 1

She knew it wasn't right, knew it was poisonous and self-destructive, and Tate had told her time and time again that she was simply torturing herself, but Violet couldn't help it; watching her body rot in the crawl space of the basement was strangely soothing to her.

It helped remind her that there had been other things than _here_, a world outside this house. She'd gotten those Converse at the mall in Boston; that dress from a little boutique she and her family had stopped at their first day in California. She'd gotten that bracelet from her friend Stacey on her last day of her old school, and it was tighter than it had been originally because she'd snapped it on the drive over, and had hastily collected all the beads off the car floor, cranking her music up louder to drown out her mother's dog's incessant yapping as she strung all the beads back through the string, tying it again and settling it back over her wrist.

She'd gotten the pills that had stopped her heart from Leah at the skate rink a block from the high school.

And examining her sunken cheeks reminded her that eating was a necessity, but impossible in her ghostly state; she'd tried, many a time, but the food turned to ash in her mouth and choked her, punished her, and she'd hide herself from everyone and cry silently to herself.

Because this had all been a mistake, a terrible, wretched mistake. She hadn't wanted to _die_, she never had. She was an attention seeker, that was all; she did things to get a rise out of people, her parents, something, anything to get them to get their heads out of their asses and realise they still had a very present daughter, one that was getting caught in the cross fires of their imploding marriage. She hadn't _expected_ to die; she had fully expected someone to rush to her aid within 20 minutes, for someone to notice the startling silence coming from her room. But she should have known better than to count on people, _especially _when said people were Ben and Vivien Harmon. Her loving and oblivious parents.

Violet sighed out a bitter laugh then, swiping harshly at the stray tear that rolled its way down her cheek. She'd told herself that she wouldn't cry during these corpse vigils, wasn't going to turn it into some warped and fucked out-of-body experience where the mourning teen floats above her lifeless form and cries to the heavens. This wasn't going to turn into a pity party. This was simply her way of coping with being dead. That's all.

"God, even when you're dead, you're a depressing little shit, aren't you?"

Violet huffs as she hears Hayden move out from the darkness, feeling the not-much-older woman's eyes on the back of her head.

"I mean," she started as she moved closer to Violet, much to the girl's chagrin. "You don't see me sitting out on that shabby little patio out back yelling 'woe is me! I got headbutted with a shovel -!'"

"What the hell do you want?" Violet snaps, cutting the woman off and shooting her a glare as she squats next to the girl, looking into the crawl space and wincing at the decomposing body there.

"Just thought we could take part in a round of friendly banter," Hayden says, offering the girl a smirk and recieving another glare in return.

"Okay, okay, easy tiger," she says, raising her hands, before moving to stand again. "I'm just here to let you know that your tortured Romeo is upstairs, awaiting your return."

Violet frowns, giving her body one last look before she too stands, brushing her clothes off.

"Why didn't he just come and get me himself?"

"Well probably because you're down here making friends with your carcass, I assume that's a little too much brooding for even him."

The two stood there for a solid minute, just looking. Violet at least didn't _think _she was glaring anymore, just looking at the woman in ponderment.

She found it weird. If the situation had been any different, she might have actually liked Hayden; she was the only one in the house, dead or alive that could match her in wit and bitchiness. But the situation remained the same. This was the woman that had helped turn her whole family to shit, this was the woman who had laid on her back and let her married teacher fuck her into a mattress that he shared with his wife, and this was the woman who would do it all again, if Ben's screaming conscience didn't keep interfering. So Violet lets her eyes go dark and hooded again, and huffs as she walks around the woman and climbs up.

"You shouldn't come back here," Hayden calls over her shoulder. "It's not healthy."

And Violet simply continues crawling, not bothering to give her answer. Because she knows it's unhealthy, knows it's stupid, but that's the fucking reason she's doing it.

She's dead.

What has she got to lose?


	2. Chapter 2

Hayden would be lying if she said she never sat out on the gazebo and cried. Because she did, just not every day, not as openly as the youngest Harmon sat in the basement's crawl space. Sitting so close to her body was the only time she'd ever show any wavering in her indifferent facade. So she'd go at night; light a candle and make her way into the backyard and just sit cross-legged in the middle of the patio, and cry because it was _fucking _fair. She had been so close to getting her Ben for good, so close to being happy with him and their _child_, and she'd had it all stolen from her.

But tonight, she wasn't crying, wasn't cursing out a sorrowful monologue. She was just sitting and thinking, watching the breeze catch the sheets on the clothes line.

"Well someone's a hypocrite," Violet says softly, smoothing her skirt down as she sits next to the woman, a fair distance away, but still close enough for it not to look ridiculous.

"Don't be a bitch," Hayden replies, looking to the girl and smirking slightly. "I'm the only one who does that right."

Violet chuckles, and looks out at the trees that line the yard's perimeter. Had she been alive, she would have gone to explore them, see if they led anywhere interesting. She was always up for an adventure. 'The more morbid, the better,' her friend Stacey used to tease.

"What happened to you?" she asks Hayden, tearing her eyes away from the trees to look at the side of the woman's face. She's not carrying her signature smug smirk, the one that pegs her as 'bitch' before she even says anything. She just looks thoughtful, slightly serene, and a lot sad.

"You know that creepy guy with the half burned face?" Hayden sighs, looking to Violet and seeing her nod.

"Clocked me good right across the dome with a shovel," she laughs out, then frowns and looks back to the clothes line.

"I was pregnant, you know."

"Was it my dad's?" Violet inquires.

"He's the only person I ever had sex with alive," Hayden retorts, looking down into her lap at her hands.

A silence settles then, and a particularly hard gust of wind comes, whipping the sheets around wildly.

"I don't believe that," Violet whispers, almost inaudibly.

"Well that fucking sucks for you, because it's the truth," Hayden says roughly.

Another silence, followed by the hoot of an owl.

"So that's why you were here and not in Boston. You were here to fuck up our family," Violet says, looking at her hands as she plays with them in her lap. "I hate to break it to you," she continues, looking at the side of the woman's face again, "but you did a pretty damn good job the first time."

"You know, I'm tired of being treated like the bad person in this situation," Hayden says, her voice raising as she shakes her head. "I'm the _victim _here -"  
>"Oh bullshit!" Violet cuts, using her arms to shift herself so that she's facing the woman. "You're gonna play the 'victim' card now? It wasn't rape, Hayden. You just deluded yourself into thinking that a married man would leave his family for you."<p>

"You don't know anything, you little bitch," Hayden says, overlapping the girl's last sentence and shifting herself as well, moving to her knees.

"Yeah, maybe I_ was_ the one who initiated all of this. And maybe I _did _delude myself into thinking he'd leave his...picture perfect family to be with a fuck-up like me. But what you have to realise is that your daddy loved every moment of our relationship as much as I did."

"You're fucking crazy," Violet concludes, and stands up and begins to leave, before she feels the woman place a hand on her wrist.

"Ben Harmon was my first," Hayden says, and she makes eye contact with Violet, and the girl sees so much sadness in her eyes, so she stops.

"High school was hell for me," the woman continues, standing and walking to pull herself up on the railing behind where she was sitting.

"I wasn't one of the pretty populars, I didn't play any sports or have any significant talents. I just liked to read. So naturally, everyone looked through me," she reminisces with a smile, shrugging her shoulders.

"And then I got to college. 4 year scholarship for a master's in psychology," she continues, and her smile grows visibly, even in the dull light of the candle.

"And I met your father. He's a dreamboat; the kind of teacher every girl fantasizes about. And...he was the first person that didn't look right through me, and...I fell for him. I started...failing tests on purpose so that he would keep me after class for talks," she laughs softly. "And then after about a month of that, my grade started suffering, so I...invited him out for beers. So he could help 'clear up my concerns.'"

She looks to Violet, who had slowly made her way to stand next to her, placing her hands on the railing.

"He called me beautiful that night," she recalls, and Violet watches as the first tear falls down her cheek. The girl is almost feeling sorry for the woman, until she remembers that she's the reason why everything is shit, the reason why her family sucks, and her wall goes up again. Hayden looks over quickly when she feels Violet look away from her face and out to the arched walkway.

"You always do that," Hayden says, looking at the archway as well.

"Don't know what you're talking about," the girl says stonily.

"I can tell; you'll start letting me in, start to forgive me just that tiny bit, and then you block me out again. You get that from your dad," the woman chuckles out. Then her face goes somber again, and she's looking Violet straight in her face, and Violet is caught by her earnest glance and can't bring herself to look away.

"I really am sorry, I…I never meant for any of this to affect anyone else. It's just that he made me feel…_special_ and I'd never felt that before and I wanted to keep feeling it for as long as possible, any means necessary, and…"

Hayden stops when her speech gets choked up in her throat, and she moves her gaze back to her lap, which currently inhabited her own fidgeting hands. She really was sorry for how her actions had ruined the young girl's life; she hadn't intended for any of it to happen. She had simply been trying to get what she _wanted _for once, wanted to finally have something that she could call her own.

Violet hadn't yet looked away from the woman's face, however. The wheels were turning in her head as she looked at the face, not much older than her own. And she understood the "wanting to be special" bit she was sharing, because that's exactly how she felt about Tate. Granted, Tate didn't have a wife and kid and completely tolerable life, but still, Violet got it.

There's more silence, and Violet looks away and begins watching the leaves wisp around on the bricks that pave the walkway. She wants to stay angry with Hayden, because this woman is the reason literally _everything _is so shit, but the girl realises quickly that staying angry takes way too much energy, so she moves to a straight standing position, dusting her hands off and looking to the woman with a half smirk.

"The girls invited me to a tea party in the morning," Violet begins, and then pauses to reach a hand out and grab a few strands of Hayden's hair. "I think Angela would like having a new head of hair to make up."

Hayden looks up and smirks then, reaches up to quickly swipe at her face with the back of her hand.

"Don't think I'd be taking anyone's seat, do you?" she asks slyly.

Violet shrugs and crosses her arms across her chest. "Maybe Pretty Boy's, but he'll get over it soon enough, he has the attention span of a flea."

Hayden smiles then, and Violet responds with a smirk.

Things would be alright.


End file.
